Book I: The Mantis Saga

Chapter Nine: First Step

The sun did not set over Tokyo; it simply died. There was
no radiant flow of oranges and reds lighting the sky as the golden orb sank
slowly into the ocean. No scarlet reflection across the waves or long, lazy
shadows cast over the town. Japan was enclosed by the icy grip of winter,
and the sun, which had only offered a weak glow all day, was now enveloped
behind the black clouds, that had conquered the sky from horizon to horizon.
Shrouded by the hazy cloak, the sun faded away, the spark ebbing away slowly,
drawing away the wan light and letting darkness sink over the land. The silver
light of the moon was denied the city too, making the blackness total.

Yet humanity declared its rebellion against nature with
its arrogant ingenuity as first one, then millions of little lights blossomed in the night, appearing
like tiny, orange stars twinkling across the earth for as far as the eye could
see. And soon the pure black of the sky was tainted by the dull red luminescence
of ambient light.

A stiff gust of wind blew through the silent dojo, ruffling
Ranma Saotome's raven-dark hair and rattling the shogi doors. The chill slithered
along his skin, causing the prickle of goosebumps. He did not notice as he
sat on the varnished wooden floor with crossed legs and hands resting limp
on his knees.

The flames within the paper lanterns that stood in the four
corners of the dojo began to flicker rabidly, as the wax that sustained their
lives dribbled and pooled across their bases. And soon, like the sun, they
too winked out, nothing but a thin trail of grey smoke and a puddle of hardened
wax to testify of their existence.

Ranma's pupils dilated within their blue-grey irises. The
pitch-black gloom slowly receded to reveal shapeless blurs which eventually
resolved into shadowed objects. Not that Ranma was looking. His attention
was directed firmly inwards, his brain flicking and filtering through the
barrage of thoughts that rioted in his mind.

Any observer may have thought that he was meditating, something
that most people expected of a martial artist like him. Kasumi had thought
so when she had entered the training hall to inform him that lunch was ready.
And then when he had not come to eat, to bring him a small tray laden with
the leftovers she could rescue from a gluttonous panda. And again later to
remove the plate after it had been untouched and the young man had not moved,
only to repeat the entire process again five hours later for supper.

This, however, was not meditation; it was contemplation.
True, his senses were turned inwards, seeking within himself. But instead
of clearing his mind of the hailstorm of wild thoughts, as one who sought
Nirvana would do, he sifted through them, looking for an answer. The answer
was to be something unique to him, something personal and from the depths
of his heart. No Buddha of divine alignment with the natural order would find
such an answer. It was his, and his alone!

And now with a blazing flash of spiritual thunder, he had
found his answer.

My duty to the Art is first and foremost,the silent mantra chimed
in his head.

He shot upwards to his feet, not even unfolding his legs
or pushing himself up. He simply stood. The muscles in his back and legs protested
as the blood at being forced so suddenly into action after the hours of stillness.
Yet with trained discipline and physique, the aches were ignored and quickly
vanished. Spinning on his heel, he marched determinedly from the dojo.

He had an announcement to make.

The Tendo family and its Saotome extension were all in the
lounge. Kasumi poured green tea into a cup daintily held in his mother's slender
fingers, as they chattered about cooking and exchanged neighbourhood gossip
on the couch. Akane sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa's leg with
her legs folded beneath her. The two family patriarchs sat on plush futon
staring intently at the tiles laid across the shogi board. Genma adjusted
his glasses while analysing the game, while Soun ran a finger irritably through
his moustache. There was someone missing, however.

Ranma ignored her as he watched his mother, meeting the
probing gaze in her cerulean eyes with a blank, unrevealing stare. Nodoka
tightened her lids with intensity as she searched her son's eyes for some
hint of his thoughts. Ranma maintained his poker face, while all the time
praying for her approval of his decision.

"Would you like me to fix you something to eat since
you missed dinner, Ranma?" The elder Tendo daughter asked with a warm
smile.

The pigtailed boy's stomach growled, woken from its slumber
by the mention of food. He quashed the hunger ruthlessly. His belly would
have to wait. Some things were more important.

"No thanks. So where is Nabiki?"

Akane looked up from the TV to answer snappishly. She was
obviously angry with him but as usual he had no idea why.

"She is out with two of her friends," was the
reply.

Probably extorting money from some poor sap!
he thought sourly. But at least it was not him, this
time. He briefly considered waiting for her return since his news involved
the whole family, but discarded the thought. If his stomach could wait, so
could Nabiki. Besides, she would probably find out soon enough from one of
her "connections". Inhaling deeply and steeling himself, he turned
to his father.

"Old man, could you stop playing that stupid game for
a moment and come here? You too, Mr. Tendo. I have
an announcement to make," he declared.

"Oh, joyous day!
You have decided to proclaim your love for my Akane," Soun cried, a fresh
storm of happy tears gushing from his eyes.

"I'll call the priest, Tendo," Genma said, bouncing
from his futon and running towards the hall.

Akane snorted, a sound heavy of scorn and disgust, deliberately
making the sound loud enough to be sure Ranma heard it, yet her wide blue
eyes never left the dark-haired boy. She studied the form of his profile intently.
She did not seem to notice it.

Ranma ignored her, lunging after the white-gi-clad man who
was sprinting towards to phone. He seized his father by the scruff of his
neck and yanked him back forcefully.

"I haven't even said what it is yet," he yelled.
Then the hair on the back of his neck tingled as they stiffened.

Leaping aside, he barely avoided the wave of ice-cold water
that streamed from the bucket clasped in a pair of gnarled, wiry hands. His
father was not so lucky, and he quickly morphed into a large, soggy panda.
Ranma twisted to grab the dwarfish martial arts master by his faded black
clothes and held him aloft.

"What the hell are you doing?" he screamed into
Happosai's withered face.

"I was just testing your reflexes and reactions, Ranma
my boy," the old lecher replied in a sugary-sweet voice. "Had to
make sure you had recovered your health."

"Can the bull," Ranma spat. "But it's good
you're here. Now I can do this properly." He threw the pervert to the
floor, and not gently. But the resilient gnome bounced upright almost immediately.

"Now, Ranma, I swear I had no idea that Loaf was the
Mantis Master until you fought him. If he I had known, I would never have
pressed you into that duel."

Ranma's fists clenched. Warrior or not, his loss to Loaf
was still a tender wound and one that broke open too easily.

"It's not about that," he barked. "And it
isn't about some stupid wedding, so you can stop writing those damn invitations,
you idiots." He glared at the two fathers, who were scribbling names
upon patterned cream pieces of paper that had materialised from nowhere. Turning
back to Happosai he continued. "This is about you for once acting like
my my " Ranma's mouth worked soundlessly, his hands opened and closed
repeatedly at his sides as he tried to force the bitter word out.

"My Master," he managed, through gritted teeth.

"Huh?" Happosai muttered dumbly.

Kasumi gasped, her hand flying
to her mouth in shock. Genma's jaw dropped and hung open as he gawped through
his beady panda eyes. Soun swayed and swooned, looking as if he were about
to faint, and Akane's eyes looked ready to fall from their sockets. His mother
just watched him, regarding him with the look of cool curiosity.

Ranma lowered himself slowly. Nodoka's earlier words about
honour and respect revolving in his head as he forced himself woodenly onto
his right knee, before coming onto his left and settling into a full kneel.

"Grandmaster Happosai," he said, his voice forged
into tempered steel. "I Ranma Saotome, student and heir of the Anything-Goes
School of Martial Arts, humbly ask for permission to represent the Musabetsu
Kakuto Ryu around the world." Hands placed flat on the floor before him,
he bowed low.

Silence. It resonated in the air, hanging thick in the room, clinging to everything.
The molecules in the air seemed to vibrate and pulse in the tense, almost
tangible quiet. No one said a word, they just watched him, staring slack-jawed
at the boy as if they had never seen him before. Rising from his bow, Ranma
waited.

"Across the world," Akane said in a hesitant,
breathless whisper. "That means that that " She stopped,
her throat tightening as her voice refused to form the words and say the words
that stabbed at her heart.

"He's leaving," Nodoka said coldly, her voice
reminded him of the sound her katana made when she drew it from its scabbard.

Silence reigned once more. Then everything exploded.

"HOW DARE YOU RUN OFF ON US AFTER ALL WE'VE GIVEN YOU?
YOU CANNOT LEAVE, DAMN YOU. YOU WILL MARRY MY DAUGHTER," Soun fumed,
tears threatening to boil on his red, livid cheeks.

"GO AHEAD AND LEAVE, YOU JERK. I NEVER LIKED YOU ANYWAY,"
Akane screamed, the tears welling in her eyes betraying the lie in those words.
"GO AND RUN AWAY WITH ONE OF YOUR SLUTS!"

"I WILL NOT ALLOW IT, BOY. I TAUGHT MY SON BETTER THAN
TO RUN AWAY FROM HIS RESPONSIBILITIES." Ranma barely restrained the urge
to laugh at the tea that dripped over his now human father's head or his hypocritical,
angry words. The urge was swiftly killed by his mother's cold voice.

"You disappoint me again, Ranma," she said in
an icy, quiet voice; which spoke much louder than the other's frenzied shrieking.
Her accusation cut though Ranma's soul and seared it with pain, but he said
nothing. He just kept on staring at the ancient man who sat before him, lighting
his long, wooden pipe.

"Master Happosai?" he prompted.

The old teacher glanced up from the steel bowl where a spark
caught and ignited a small pile of ground black tobacco. His gnarled faced
creased even more than it already was as he frowned.

Ranma sighed wearily. "I expected as much. And it doesn't
matter. I'm leaving with or without your permission," he declared. "I
just wanted to do things the honourable way."

"What would you know about honour?" his father
asked venomously.

"What would you?" the boy retorted with equal
poison and a scathing glare. "I know what is required of a warrior. Someone
taught me this very morning."

"But it seems you did not learn the lesson." His
mother scorned him in that icy, blade-like tone.

"I learnt the lesson, all right. The true path of a
warrior, the essence of honour, lies within duty. My duty to the art is first
and foremost. I am merely fulfilling that obligation."

"And how is running away required by the art?"
Nodoka asked scathingly.

"I am not running away. I am just leaving this town
as any fish would leave when he had outgrown his stagnant pond."

"Arrogant, ungrateful brat!"
Genma snapped.

"Fine, then," Akane whispered in a broken voice.
"Leave this pond. Leave me." She bolted to her feet and strode away
with hurried steps that fell just short of running. He thought he saw tears
on her cheeks.

"Akane, wait," he called after her desperately.

Kasumi stood and followed after her sister. "You should
stay here, Ranma." The words were polite, but said with a fierce heat.
He had made Akane cry and angered Kasumi. He hung his head, momentarily enfeebled
with guilt.

"I am not being vain, merely stating what is true,"
Ranma protested through grit teeth. "And the decision is not yours to
condone, mother."

"How dare you," she spat. "I am your mother.
Although right now I am shamed to the bone by that fact."

"That makes no difference," he growled. "This
is not about family; this is about the school and my place as its heir."

"And that is why you must marry my daughter,"
Soun bellowed.

"Quiet, Tendo, you fool," Happosai roared, the
authority in the Grandmaster's voice unmanning the longhaired man and silencing
his protest but for a muted squeak. Crossing his legs, the withered martial
artist returned to contemplatively puffing on his pipe.

"Tell me, my heir," the last word was a
dry, mocking taunt as he watched the young fighter who knelt before him with
a keen eye, "why must you leave?"

Ranma inhaled deeply and strove to fight off the butterflies
that flogged his stomach. He had been given a chance to explain, and he had
better make it good. My duty to the art is first and foremost. Wielding
those words like a hammer, he forged his will into a sword, a honed blade
of diamond-hard steel.

"Master Happosai. My father acknowledged me as the
heir of the Saotome-Ryu when I was born. I never really thought about that;
the word ‘heir' was just another term, meaningless. To me it just meant that
one day I would teach the art, but that seemed years
away. You, too, named me as your own heir, but that also mattered little to
me.

"It was not until today, when my mother explained the
importance of duty as the lifeblood of honour that I finally realised the
full weight of the mountainous burden you have rested on my shoulders."

"And what burden is that?" his mother asked with
acid and impatient dry tones.

Ranma ignored the obvious venom in Nodoka's voice and kept
his eyes locked within the glimmering, storm-grey eyes of the old sensei.

"As Happosai's named heir, I am the next grandmaster
of the Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts."

"What has that to do with you running away, boy?"
Genma snorted.

"How old is the present grandmaster?" The boy
asked his father. The question addled the elder Saotome's mind, diffusing
his anger into bewilderment.

"He's He's " The bald man spluttered.

"Three hundred and twenty-six in April," the old
pervert supplied helpfully from around the pipe in his mouth.

Still glaring at his father, Ranma smirked mockingly, as
the white-clad fool tried to recover from his flustered state and regain his
anger.

"Now, I suppose that he founded the Anything-Goes School
and all its techniques when he sat coddled in his cradle," he inquired
dryly.

"Of course not," Soun said, blustering through
his moustache, as he came to his friend's defence. "That's absurd."

"Then where did it come from?" He turned back
to Happosai, still wearing his cocky, sardonic grin. "Care to answer
that one, geezer?" It was a genuine question; Ranma knew very little
about the history of his style beyond the name of its creator.

"Well, my boy, I first started learning martial arts
in my homeland of Okinawa when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I believe
I was only seven years old, but I can't be sure. It was a long time ago, and
memories all fade away eventually. The style would be called karate these
days, but back then it was known as Naga-Te Kempo Jutsu.

"When I turned seventeen, I was declared a full master
of the style, having learned all that my Master could teach and having surpassed
him in skill. So I left Okinawa and travelled to Japan. The Tokugawa shoguns
had reigned for twenty years by then, and had already brought peace to Japan
under their iron rule. It was then that the unarmed combat techniques for
the battlefield began taking a more civil orientation, and several schools
of Jujitsu blossomed.

"I was a lot like you are now, Ranma, strong, keen,
and eager to learn. I was always getting involved in duels and making rivals.
I did not win every duel, but most of them, and I always regained what I had
lost. One of the losses was to Jubei Yabushima,
a Jujitsu master of the now extinct Yanagi-Ryu style.
After my loss, I begged him to teach me his skills, and after two months of
grovelling, he agreed. In time, I learnt all there was for him to teach, and
so I left.

"I travelled all over Asia, leaning from the Hwoarang
monks in Korea, studying the arts of Bando in Burma, and the deadly Silat
of Malaysia. I still don't know why I continue to live, but I expect it has
something to do with the ki-sensitive styles I learnt in China. I moved from
place to place, learning what I could and from whom I could. I never stayed
anywhere for long, I either studied until I had leant what I wanted, or I
leant the techniques from people I fought. The fights and the duels never
stopped.

"It was not until the nineteenth century, when some
western scientist brought his theory of evolution to the orient, that the
Anything Goes School was born. The principle of survival of the fittest was
the key, adapting to one's surroundings and overcoming weakness with strength
and knowledge. It was what I had been doing in my duels for decades, but declared
simply. It was on this philosophy that I founded that school, and have only
ever brought four students into the fold. Soun, Genma, and two others, dead of old age several generations ago."

Ranma nodded as the tale concluded. "Two hundred years,"
he said thoughtfully. His brows furrowed with thought beneath his dark bangs.
The old man grinned around his pipe and nodded, knowing what the boy was thinking
about.

"An interesting tale, Master Happosai," Nodoka
said, then sniffed in disdain. "But I fail to see the reason for it."

"So do I; get to the point, boy."

"You should already know the point, Pops," Ranma
said tightly, now becoming irritated by his parents' stubbornness. "How
did you develop the Umisenken and Yamasenken techniques? Or did you learn
those too from a tiger that was falling off a cliff?"

Genma fell silent, bowing his head and closing his eyes
with thought. He folded his arms and sighed, after failing to find any sort
of argument to counter that question and the issue it raised. He still vividly
recalled his solo training mission across Japan .His son had won.

"That is why I must leave. Two previous masters of
the school have travelled the lands, seeking knowledge and testing their skills.
Using their experience, they added and modified the style, improving the school
and preserving its creed of adaptation. As the future grandmaster, can I do
any less? I have already begun my work: with techniques such as the Meteor
Kick, the Mokou Takabisha and the Hiryuu Shouten Ha, I have not only become
a better martial artist, but I have also made the School stronger." He
turned to his mother and gazed at her softly, his eyes begging for her approval.
"You see, Mother, I know my duty. This is for the art."

"Ah, but is that your only reason for going?"
Happosai asked, giving him a sidelong glare and knowing smile.

"No," He admitted in a heaving sigh, hanging his
head sheepishly at the confession.

"Then why else?"
Soun asked.

Ranma licked his lips. Eyes flickering about to glance nervously
at the adults and master gathered around him, a judge and his jury. After
a contemplative and cautious pause he spoke.

"To fight."

"WHAT?" his mother bellowed, "You wish to
go and brawl in far off lands like some common thug?"

"No!" he screamed in retort. "That's not
it. I just want a challenge."

"You want more rivals? Are Kuno and that Hibiki boy
not enough? You need more people to beat to a pulp?"

Ranma's teeth gritted at the mention of Ryoga. He still
had a reckoning with the lost boy. But also he seethed with frustration. How
could he make his mother see that this was the right thing to do? He had lived
too long without her in his life to lose her now, over this.

"You don't understand, Mother," he cried. "You
may be the wife of a martial artist, but you are not one yourself. You cannot
understand how important the fight is to us. The challenge, the test, to pit
one's own skill against another's to see whose is greater. The rush of adrenalin
when I clash with my opponent hands to hand, the flurry of blows. Experiencing
thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, both such intense and pure emotions.
Seeing the grace and fluidity of a battle with another master,
poetry in motion. The love of the fight is what drives a warrior on;
without it, the art is just movement and a duel is just a crude punch-up.
Why can't you understand that?"

"What I understand is that my son wants to shirk his
responsibilities and gallivant around the world to satisfy some selfish love
of thrill-seeking," Nodoka argued, but her words were quiet and sullen,
losing most of their earlier passion and intensity.

"Nodoka, if you don't know what you are talking about,
don't talk," Happosai snapped at the woman, making her start as if slapped.
The auburn-haired woman then pouted, like a child who had been scolded by
her mother. She was not the only one who was surprised. Ranma stared at the
old man with awed eyes, as if seeing him for the first time. Happosai sat
with his stunted, little legs crossed beneath him, his wrinkled face set into
a tight grimace around the pipe that surrounded him with a thin haze. All
traces of the mischievous and perverted old letch had vanished as if evaporated
into the pipe smoke that swirled in the air. And now sat Grandmaster Happosai, founder of the Musabetsu Kakuto
Ryu. Visibly, there was no difference, but Ranma could sense it in
his aura that carried a glow of authority and was layered with hidden depths
of power.

"There is no dishonour in the boy's feelings, Nodoka.
The fire he feels is as important to a martial artist as the air that he breathes;
without it, he is nothing. It is good that Ranma has it so strong, and it
proves him worthy of being my heir."

"What would you know of honour? You are as foul as
they come," Nodoka hissed at the Master in a voice of hateful, burning
acid.

"So they say," Happosai murmured, sucking again
on his pipe. "And it may be true. But nonetheless, I am the grandmaster;
in matters of the School, my word is highest. And Ranma comes before us as
a student of Anything-Goes, not as your son." He blew the sweet-smelling
smoke out of his lungs, and Ranma thought that he saw the cloud waft directly
into his mother's face. "Besides, you know the boy is right. As the future
grandmaster, he too must test his skills in the outside world, and learn the
ways of the art by trial of fire."

Nodoka nodded in brooding reluctance.

"Then that means ?" Ranma asked in a breathless
whisper, still in shocked disbelief in the change in the old man and at how
he faced down his mother.

"Yes, Ranma.
I give my permission for you to represent the Anything-Goes School of Martial
Arts. I name you as my successor, and charge you to build a legacy in the
art for the future masters, and to let the world know that the Musabetsu Kakuto
Ryu is the greatest martial art ever devised by God or man." The Grandmaster
smiled benignly at his heir.

"Thank you, Master," Ranma said as he once again
bowed low. Happosai returned the gesture and leered at the boy.

"If you really want to thank me, you could model some
lingerie for me."

Ranma pounded his knuckles into the renewed pervert's bald
head. It had been good while it lasted.

He then grinned widely. He could leave. Now he could travel
the world, learning all there was to know about the martial arts and testing
his skills against the world's best. More than a training journey, this was
a pilgrimage, a quest.

"Don't worry, Mother, Mr Tendo. I'm not just going
to vanish. I'll be back from time to time to check up on things. And I'll
send postcards." His beaming face fell into a happy, nostalgic smile.
"This is the first place in my life that truly felt like home. I've made
a lot of ties in Nerima over the last two years. I cannot bear to break those
now."

"That's good to know, Ranma," Soun said. "I'm
still not happy about this journey, but I can see that you believe in it.
I was once a young martial artist too."

Ranma smiled his gratitude at the older man's approval and
nodded respectfully at the Tendo. He rose from his knees. He had to talk to
Akane.

Ranma stared at the nameplate. His eyes tracked over every
curve of the carved duck silhouette, scanning the grooves that etched out
each letter. He was irritatingly aware of his heart pulsing in his chest,
pounding against his ribcage like a deep bass drum. His fist hovered from
the painted surface of the door in front of him, tremblingly slightly. With
courage summoning tension he forced the hand to obey him, making it rap lightly
against the wood. The sound it made thundered in his mind.

"GO AWAY, RANMA!" Akane's hoarse voice screamed
from the other side.

"Akane, let me in," he yelled back.

Muffled sounds of slow, steady movement were barely audible
trough the wooden barrier. He stood back and watched the handle turn. When
the door was slowly, slid open the face that glared at him was not Akane's,
but Kasumi's.

"I think you should leave Akane alone for a while,
Ranma," the elder sister advised, a surly tone tainting her usual warmth.

The brown-haired girl stared at him. Regarding
him probingly through the crack in the door that she stood in. Her
eyes scanned his face, considering every facet of his features. Then she nodded
to herself, and slipped into the hall, and out of his way.

"I'll leave you two alone, then," she said as
she walked past. "Be careful of what you say, Ranma, and of your temper.
She's upset already, and angry. Don't make things worse," Kasumi added,
before gliding from the hall like a ghost.

He considering her words as he inhaled deeply, setting himself
for the emotional battle ahead. Slowly, gently, he pushed the door open as
he entered her room, his head poking into the room warily as he moved.

He glanced around his surroundings. The white walls, decorated
with yellow patterned diamonds, seemed unbearably closed, making the room
seem small, confining. Shelves lined the walls and were stacked in cases on
the floor, each covered with the typically disordered belongings of the teenage
girl; books, magazines, CDs and DVDs. A tall, white panelled wardrobe stood
in the corner, several sleeves protruding from the doors. Beside sat a matching
chest of drawers, topped with a menagerie of stuffed animals, mostly black
piglets Ranma bitterly noticed. There was also a desk covered in disarray
with schoolbooks and random pieces of paper. A full-length mirror hung on
the wall, beside which was a small shelf of various makeup and beauty items,
and at the foot stood a pair of dumbbells. The plush pink carpet and matching
lace curtains seemed remarkably feminine for the person he had called a tomboy
for over a year now, as did the frilly design of the bedclothes upon which
a midnight-haired girl lay curled up, sullenly facing the wall opposing where
the braided boy stood. The fine strands of her dark hair hung over her face
obscuring her visage from view. Her skirt pooled across the bed around her
fine legs, and her slender arms were wrapped about herself, as if hugging.

"Akane?" he asked in a whisper. Despite the fact
that he could not see her face, there was such beauty in her form as to render
all other speech impossible.

"Go away," she said, not turning to face him.

"Akane, we need to talk. I need to explain."

"What's there to explain, you jerk?" she spat
back. "Its not as if I care that you're leaving."

"Akane, please.
Listen," he begged.

"What for?
So you can call me an uncute bint and brag about the virtues of whatever slut
you have decided to run away from this ‘stagnant pond' with?"

Ranma felt his anger rise, churning in his belly like the
flames of a furnace. But he remembered Kasumi's words, and fought the impulse
to shout down to a mute buzz.

"Akane, I'm not running off with anyone," he said
slowly. The shorthaired girl displayed her low opinion of that statement with
a derisive snort. "Stop it, Akane. I don't want to fight with you. The
memory of you that I'll keep on my journey should not be of us arguing. And
I don't want you to remember me the same way."

She rolled over to look at him then. Her azure eyes gazing
at the lines of his face, looking for prove of any insincerity. The irises
were wide and glimmering, and her lids were red and
slightly puffy. Ranma did not know why. She had obviously decided he was telling
the truth as her shoulder slumped as she sat up, the anger draining from her.

"No," she sighed "I don't want to think of
you that way either."

Silence crept in and hung over the two of them, thick in
the air and clinging to them like jelly. It pulled and strained under the
tension in the air and Ranma gazed idly at the ceiling and Akane stared intently
at a patch of the carpet, eyes occasionally flicking up in nervous glances
at each other, before shooting away less the other see them looking.

"Ranma, why are you leaving?" Akane asked finally,
in a small voice. "Aren't you happy here with us?" The word us
seemed rather forced.

Ranma seemed to deflate as he let his breath out in one
dejected sigh. Akane inched up on her bed. Glancing at the space she had freed
indicating that Ranma should sit. He did, both of them shuffling a few nervous
centimetres to maintain the hands span of distance between them.

"I am happy here, Akane," he answered. "More
so than I've been for years."

"Then why not stay?"

"Because it can't last.
I'm happy now, but I won't stay that way."

"Why not?"
Akane's voice was becoming tense and strained.

Ranma told her what he had told his parents, this explanation
being much briefer. More an explanation of his thoughts,
how he felt about leaving and what he considered to be his duty as the future
grandmaster. Not at all like the trial that had taken place downstairs,
pleading his case before his mother and Happosai, convincing them to accept
his decision and his right to make it. This was a simple stating of his intentions,
no holding back, speaking with complete honesty. Akane had to know why he
was leaving, and had to know it all.

For her part the Tendo girl listened, without question,
without argument or spark of anger. Ranma could not recall a pervious instant
in their relationship where she had done so. Before, it had always been "pervert-mallet-pain".
But now she just watched him, absorbing his words as she gazed at him with
those big, shimmering blue eyes. He was uncomfortably aware of his tongue
moving as it shaped his words, seeming thick and cumbersome.

"I may be happy now, Akane, but I can't live in quiet.
I'm not that kind of guy, and my place as the Anything-Goes School heir will
not let me. In the last year, Nerima has been a sort of crucible, new fighters
and threats testing my skills. But it can't last; even now things are settling
into routine. That's not the way I want to live. I need to live life in the
fast lane. If Loaf's visit taught me anything, it's that there is a whole
world out there to experience. I can't ignore that. Both my duty and my soul
scream at me to leave. If I don't do it now, I may never do it, and I just
know I'll regret that forever."

"I see," was all she said. The words were barely
more then a whisper.

She's upset. Quick, make her see a good side,Ranma's mind screamed at him as he watched the girl slump. She seemed suddenly
fragile, vulnerable as if a touch could break her.

"And besides," he said with his most friendly,
charming grin. "If I stayed, our fathers would just make us get married,
heh-heh-heh." He forced himself to chuckle lightly.

Akane seemed to sink further, as if a deep crack had broke
into her brittle, glasslike demeanour. Her eyes dropped from his, glancing
at the hands in her lap as she wrung her fingers against each other. She blinked
as if her eyes stung.

"So you're leaving so that you don't have to marry
me," she whispered, her voice small and broken.

Ranma near leaped from his skin. "No. Nononono,"
he babbled mindlessly as guilt coiled and writhed in his gut. He had said
the wrong thing, again. And had made her even more upset. Thing this time
was, that he had no idea what he had said wrong. She's upset because you
made it seem like you don't want to marry her, you foot-in-the-mouth fool,
one part of his mind answered scathingly. That has a tendency to insult
a girl. With this newfound answer, he forced his mouth to form coherent
sentences and tried to repair his mistake.

"That's not it," he said first, and then he continued
slowly, considering each word so as not to slip up and make the situation
worse. "Its just we're seventeen years old. It's too early for me to
settle down into marriage, and I'm sure you feel the same."

The words sunk into Akane mind, and she released a small
giggle and a sigh. "You're right, for once. We are a bit young. I wish
that our fathers understood that."

Ranma smiled and nodded in agreement, happy at her change
in mood. Score one for Saotome, that part of his mind congratulated
in satisfaction.

"How long will you be gone, Ranma?"
Akane asked tentatively.

"I don't know. This is not like the other times I left.
This time I'm not seeking anything definite. I have no objective other than
to learn and to test myself."

"So it could be years," she summarised, her posture
slumping and the momentary smile falling for her face as if it weighed a tonne.

"Yeah," he agreed sadly. He could not lie to her.
Not now. "But I'll be back, to visit and make sure that you behave your
tomboy self."

Akane brightened at that suggestion, rising up to fix him
firmly in the gaze of her wide, cerulean eyes. "You promise, Ranma?"
she demanded, grabbing him hard with the glimmering highlights in her irises.

"Of course.
Too much of importance to me is here to abandon."

She smiled. The gesture lit her face. He could his heart
thump in his gesture, his mouth suddenly dry and his throat tightening as
the beauty of that smile literally swept his breath away. His mind shut down,
thoughts scattering like shards of broken glass as his eyes drank her in.
Then as soon as it came, the smile was gone, leaving a void in his chest.

"So when are you going?" she inquired quietly.

"Day after tomorrow.
I have some things to take care of first."

"The fiancées?"

"The fiancées," he agreed. "I can't leave
them without any explanation or goodbye."

"You always have before," she grunted in accusation.

"But not this time.
I owe them both that much at least."

"Both?" Akane questioned.

"You think I'm going anywhere near that fruitcake Kodachi?"

"Good point."

Quiet.

"Ranma?"

"Hmm?"

"There's nothing I can say that would make you change
your mind?"

Ranma considered the question. But he knew the answer, and
stared guiltily at the carpet. He could not give voice to his rejection, but
Akane read it in his eyes. She sighed.

Ranma blinked in confusion. "Ryoga?" he murmured
bemused, wondering what the lost boy had to do with anything at this point
in time.

"Well, he's a martial artist, and he trains as much
as you do. I wished he were here right now. He would know what to say. Like
when he came last week; I asked him to talk to you, cause
he would understand you more than I could."

The dark-haired youth remembered that visit well. Lying
in bed while the bandana-clad boy sneered at his weakness and spoke his insults
to the injured warrior as he had curled up like a child. That was supposed
to be help?

Unless?

He remembered the last time Ryoga had thought him weak.
The moxibustion point had sapped his strength by Happosai's cruel design.
He had been rescued by Cologne and the Hiryuu Shouten Ha, but the training
required a strong enemy, one who would not hold back against him. But until
the sight of Akane in torn clothes had sent him into a love-driven rage, Ryoga
did not have it in him to fight a weakened opponent. Hell, the lost boy had
even defended him in his vulnerable state from Kuno and Mousse. Now that he
thought about the previous week's encounter, the scene seemed wrong. Why would
Ryoga's attitude to a defeated Ranma have changed so much, unless he had been
aiming to enrage Ranma from his depressed, bedridden lethargy?

But the guy is too stupid to use reverse psychology

Yet there was no other explanation, and if Ryoga had chosen
to help his rival, his pride would only allow him to do so through a veil
of aggression. Ranma felt the anger and resentment he had harboured towards
the lost martial artist evaporate. The respect and friendship he had once
offered as comrades blossomed again.

"That gives me an idea."

"Huh?" The girl quirked at his sudden statement.

"Nothing," he mumbled.

Another long silence shrouded the room. The
two occupants glancing at each other as they racked their brains for something
to say. But there was nothing else to be said or the consequences
of the words were too strong that fear refused to let them out into voice.

"Well, I'll see you later, Akane. I won't leave without
saying goodbye."

Then like a ghost he left the room, and the girl whose hollow
heart left a stinging void in her soul.

His room was not empty when he entered it. His mother sat
on his futon, waiting for him. The dull light from a small table lamp cast
harsh shadows across the side of her face and made the auburn of her hair
glow like the dying embers of a fire. Yet in the gloom, her eyes shone brightly
as they met the blue-grey orbs of her son.

"Don't try and talk me out of it, Mom," he said
before she could raise the expected protest.

"I won't," she replied calmly, with a small smile.
"I can see that you are determined to go through with this. And I can
understand your reasons, despite my own wishes."

Ranma smiled gratefully, the tension flooding out of him.
He had her approval. Now there was nothing to hold him back.

"However," Nodoka said, steel returning to her
voice. That one word made Ranma's hopes sink, and his muscles bunched in tight
suspense.

"I cannot allow you to shirk all of your responsibilities,
Ranma," she continued, glaring at the boy in the gloom, as if challenging
him to refute. "If you are to leave, you must marry Akane. I cannot
in good faith allow you to go without cementing that bond."

Body jerking as if struck, he stepped back, staring at his mother with wide eyes.
Then his lids narrowed, his hands balling into white knuckled fists. His jaw
tightened as his teeth ground together. Anger was a fire within his breast.
He should have expected this!

"Pops put you up to this, didn't he? Him and Mr Tendo,"
he accused.

"It was my suggestion, although the two of them wholeheartedly
agreed. If you truly are concerned with your duty to the art, you must obey
this,"

Mouth working, he fought down his shock at her admission.
Taking in a deep, and mastering his will into steel, he gave his reply.

"No."

"I beg your pardon?"

"No," he repeated. "I will
not marry Akane not yet."

Her eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed as she grimaced,
the glare shining from her cerulean eyes cutting through him like a knife.
"Ranma!" she snapped furiously. "I am not asking for a discussion.
You will marry Akane."

His anger still rolled and gnawed at his belly. He seized
onto it, clinging tenaciously to the rage like it was his lifeline, giving
him the power to face down the woman who had birthed him. The temptation to
give in, to accept so that he could see the smile he loved and had missed
so dearly was amassing. But holding onto his pride, he fought it down, knowing
that he could not allow his parents to abuse honour and make
his decisions for him.

"I am not discussing anything. I said no!"

"Damn you, Ranma," she spat, shocking him with
the curse as it sprung from her prim tongue. "I had hoped I had taught
you something. But it seems I was wrong. You cannot be saved if you cannot
see what is needed."

"I can see everything, crystal clear," he retorted
dryly. "It is you who seems to be blind."

"Ranma, how dare you!" she shrieked. "I am
your mother. You will do as I say."

Ranma grunted, the sound was a mixed hybrid of disdainful snort and bitter
laugh. "I am doing as you said," he shot back. "Honour,
you said, is a personal thing; that you could only show me the path, and that
I had to walk it. Well, how the hell do you expect me to walk it if you insist
that I blindly do whatever you say?"

Nodoka stiffened, her whole body surging straight as her
son flung her own words back in her face. Her mouth twisted as she stared
daggers at the dark-haired youth before her. "Then I wonder if you have
not lost your way and fallen from the path. Surely you must have plummeted
into madness, or stupidity, not to see that this is your duty. The art requires
that the schools be united."

"The schools are united, if they were ever broken
to begin with." Seeing his mother's confused and irritated frown he explained.
"The School does not need unifying, as it has already been made whole
through me. Happosai, Grandmaster of Anything-Goes has already named me his
designated heir. As head of the School, his word supersedes that of Pop or
Mr. Tendo. I am the successor to the Anything-Goes School as a whole; the
Saotome and Tendo Ryu being subsidiaries become assimilated upon my ascension
to grandmaster when the old pervert croaks."

Nodoka opened her mouth, preparing her protest. Ranma kept
on talking, throwing the words out and raising his voice to override any retort.

"That is, if the Tendo Ryu can be called a school.
Soun never made any alterations nor brought any new techniques to the syllabus.
Nor did Akane. He just taught it as he had learnt
it, but without being chased by hordes of enraged girls or sneaky tactics.
Akane, although talented, is no master, nor does she have anything that she
could teach me. This engagement is not about schools or techniques, it is
about the dojo somewhere that the old man can rest his lazy butt and mooch
from the Tendos while I teach the classes."

"Do not show such disrespect to your father, Ranma.
He knows what is best for the school," his mother chastised sternly.

"Can the bull, Mom. You know it's true."

His mother grimaced but remained silent.

"Besides," he said quietly. His voice softened
to a reflective whisper. "I can't do that to the others."

Nodoka seized upon that like vultures at carrion. "So
you would rather sacrifice your honour so that you can lead on three other
women. You are bound by oath to marry a Tendo. Despite your low opinion of
the Tendo School, the inheritance of the dojo still offers the most towards
the future of the art, which is your primary concern."

"DAMN IT! I AM NOT A POSSESSION TO BE SOLD TO THE HIGHEST
BIDDER!" Ranma roared, his face flushing red with anger. Bitterness had
welled within him, and now he unleashed the torrent upon his mother, who met
his rage with equal fervour.

"DO NOT TAKE THAT TONE WITH ME, YOUNG MAN. YOU MUST
DO WHAT HONOUR DEMANDS."

"But it's not just my honour involved, is it?"
Ranma asked in a voice that dripped with acid. "Shampoo cannot return
home without obeying the law to marry, which as an Amazon she is oath-bound
to uphold. Her honour as well as her life is forfeit if she breaks that law,
and so her honour is entwined with mine. And it was Pops himself who had arranged
the engagement with the Kuonjis. The honour of both our families becomes junk
if I break that commitment."

His mother flinched at the mention of her husband's involvement
in his relationship with Ukyo. Hands once again balling at the fabric of her
kimono, she fixed her son with cold eyes. "Then you must do as duty dictates
and enter the union that is most advantageous for the school."

Ranma quirked an eyebrow and allowed a wry smirk to curl
his lips. "And that would be to marry Akane." His tone was full
of cocky superiority.

"Of course it is," she snapped, infuriated further
by his sudden arrogance. "The art must have a place in which it is taught.
Akane at least offers that. Ramen or okonomiyaki is not of much help in that
case." She matched his smirk with a satisfied smile. Ranma's expression
never wavered.

"Bricks and mortar, Mom," he said simply. "That's
what a dojo is when you get down to it. Training halls can be built and can
be destroyed. The art is larger than that; it exists in the spirit and the
minds of its practitioners; walls cannot hold it. Dad did not need a dojo
to teach me, nor do will I need one to teach my students. The art is alive
within me."

Nodoka gawped, her mouth opened and closed but only a faint
squeak could be heard. The barrage of precise logic, on a scale never expected
by anyone who new Ranma Saotome, had left her floundering like a fish plucked
from the water.

"Ranma, please," was all she could manage, her
voice soft and ragged.

"Mother," he soothed, his reaching across to place
his hand over hers. "You said it yourself; my duty do the art is first
and foremost." He shook his head, slowly and inwardly. "I sat there
for hours with those words spinning in my mind, asking myself; what was
my duty to the art? The answer was to master it, to become the best warrior
there is. To make the Anything-Goes Style legendary across the globe as the
greatest martial art ever devised. It was that revelation that told me to
leave on this journey so that I could test and perfect my skills. And it is
that what leads me to this problem.

"You said that I must enter the union that is best
for the art. But that is not as easy as it sounds, for they all offer much.
Akane is a talented martial artist and a member of the Anything-Goes School
herself, and there still is the matter of the dojo. But Ucchan and
Shampoo are both superior martial artists. Ucchan is a Master of her own Okonomiyaki-style
of martial arts, which offers talented use of weapons as well as an additional
means of earning a living. Shampoo is a warrior to the core, and her skills
far surpass Akane and Ucchan's. Other than Ryoga and me, she is probably the
best martial artist in town." He sighed, his body sinking and suddenly
seeming very weary. "But none of that matters. It may be shameful and
selfish, but I cannot marry someone who I don't love."

"That's not good enough, Ranma," his mother said
sternly. "You must choose one of them."

"Hey, back off," he snapped back in furious irritation.
"It ain't as easy as that. I'm not choosing what I want for dinner, or
what movie I want to watch. This is the person I'm to spend the rest of my
life with. I'm not like Pop; I don't intend to run out on my wife for a decade
or two." His mother quivered and recoiled as if struck, the sudden widening
of her eyes revealed a world of hurt in those blue irises.

Ranma stomped down on his guilt as his twanged as his gut,
and continued in a soft, reasoning voice, "Mom, I'm only seventeen years
old. Too young to marry; too young to even know what love is. And so is Akane.
She has too much going for her, and should get to decide her own path in life,
rather than be forced in to an early jaunt down the aisle and a life of housekeeping
and dojo running. She wants more than that, and I want more for her. Besides,
I am leaving in two days. I cannot just get married, and leave whoever I wed
behind."

"Then take her with you," Nodoka protested sharply.

Ranma shook his head. "I can't. This is something I
must do myself. I pledged to you that I would become a man, and this journey
will make me into one. I will not marry until that has happened, nor until
I know for certain that I've found the one I will love all of my life."

Nodoka lips pursed into a tight line and her eyes narrowed.
"I can understand that, Ranma, but I cannot accept it. You have been
promised to Akane; end of discussion."

Ranma rose to the challenge, as he always did. "You
may not accept it, Mother, and I wish that you could. But you cannot stop
it either."

"That is true," she conceded, her voice was soft
yet razor sharp. She rose to her feet and passed by her son as she slipped
from the room. When she reached the door, she glanced over her shoulder and
sent Ranma a piercing glare out of the corner of her eye.

"You said that this journey should make a man of you,"
she said imperiously. "We shall see just what kind of man." And
with that, she glided away.

Ranma sighed. Pangs were shooting through his chest as he leaned on the windowsill
and gazed outward at the stars. He had hated that conversation, as he had the
one in the living room. Arguing with his mother was like twisting a knife in
the wound that had been left by ten years without her. Seeing the blatant disappointment
in her eyes had been torture, making him feel low, with a deep, hollow sinking
in his heart. But it had to be done. For once, Ranma Saotome refused to be wishy-washy.
He had made up his mind and was sticking to it. And staring up at the night
sky, he challenged the stars themselves to stop him.

To be continued.

Author's notes: So now we get to the point that I've been
building up to for the past 9 chapters. Yes, Ranma is leaving Nerima, and
you all probably find it about as unexpected as the plot of Sailor Moon, i.e.
not at all. How many times can you expect a new fighter to wander through
Nerima?

And about Happosai, and the whole honour
thing. Should I get ready to dodge rotten fruit
and broken glass? Yes, I know Happosai is OOC, but I think that he's not as
evil as he seems, just perverted. I also think that he does care about the
future of the School; after all, he did found it. Also I hope no one lynches
me for the heir stuff, but Happosai did say that he would teach Ranma to carry
on his school, and I think a Grandmaster's heir is superior to the heir of
a man like Genma. And I've never actually seen Soun acknowledge Akane as his
heir, just as a brood-mare.

I've gotten mixed opinions about the honour theme; I hope
this chapter reassures people that honour does not mean a loss of will. Honour
is an important theme in martial arts and Ranma ½, and one that I think merits
exploration. What you are reading is my own way of seeking the place of honour
in the modern world, if there is one. But if some people are still not happy about it, tough. I can't
please everyone, and you can't read a fic called "Honour and Pride",
and not expect to read about honour.

Fiancées. Why haven't I chosen one and got some romance started? I'm getting
there. This is going to be a long fic, and I have three years to work on this,
so be patient. I haven't chosen one yet because I want to keep you guessing
which one Ranma will get with, if any. But you are all right that this
story is getting a bit dark. When did I last write something funny? Hopefully
it won't last it's just the flow of the story. But I admit to being a born
pessimist, so I may not be able to write "happy".

On a happy note, Honour and Pride has a home on the net.
Thanks to Larry F for giving me a space at the Lost Library of Florestica.
And "hi" to all the new readers there! (I live off of reviews.)
I'm kind of nervous because the site has a lot of great authors featured,
like D.B Sommer, so I wonder if my humble tale will match up. The site will
feature all the chapters (grammatically correct and with the cast f**k-up
cured). And if I can ever get hold of a scanner I may add some illustrations
of the scenes in the fic, and would like to see what anyone has pictured in
their mind.